Several scores of people received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception during a crowded Sunday afternoon Mass celebrated on Feb. 11, which the Church recognizes as the World Day of the Sick.
Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila celebrated the Mass, during which he reflected on the miraculous cures recounted in Scripture and recounted by others who have been healed. He also spoke of the need for spiritual healing and trust in God when our illnesses and diseases are not cured.
“Both of my parents died of cancer,” the archbishop said in his homily. “Even though we prayed for them, even though we brought them water from Lourdes, we knew that it was in God’s plan. It was their time.
“We were confident in the Lord, confident in the gift of salvation, and confident that he would bring good even out of their death,” Aquila said. “Because not everyone is healed.”
“Not all are healed, but there is a healing that occurs,” he added. “It may not be physical, but the heart is healed, the willingness to surrender [to God], the growth in trust, in faith, in confidence that, yes, the promises of the Lord are true.”
Pope St. John Paul II, who declared the first World Day of the Sick in 1992, set the observance to fall on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, a 19th-century Marian apparition associated with a miraculous healing spring in Lourdes, France.
Among those who received the Anointing of the Sick at the cathedral was Danielle Lopez, a parishioner at Ave Maria Catholic Parish in Parker, Colo. After Mass, she told the Denver Catholic what the sacrament means for her.
“It means healing. It means diving deeper into my faith,” Lopez said. “I have cancer. It’s tremendous. It means a lot to get Anointing of the Sick right now.”
For those willing, Lopez asked for prayer requests: “Pray for healing. Pray for strength during treatment, pray for a better understanding of faith.”
In his homily, Archbishop Aquila reflected on the reading from the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus heals a leper. He noted the isolation and fears and anxieties a person with leprosy would suffer.
In the gospel, the leper goes to Jesus, kneels before him and says “if you wish, you can make me clean.”
The archbishop said that by kneeling before Jesus Christ, the leper recognizes that Jesus is God because this is an act of worship. He is recognizing Jesus’ power and authority to heal him and make him clean.
“He has great trust and confidence in Jesus,” the archbishop commented. In the reading, Jesus heals the leper. He tells the leper to follow the prescribed cleansing under Jewish law and to make a sacrifice at the temple. Though Jesus warned the leper to tell nothing, the leper tells everyone.
Archbishop Aquila then cited the reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians: “do everything for the glory of God… be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”
“Christ always comes first,” Aquila said. “Christ is the one to imitate, and everything, whether we are healed or not healed, is for the glory of God, and his desire for our good.”
The archbishop recounted the experiences of those who seek physical healing from God, like a mother who went to Lourdes seeking healing for a serious condition. She told the archbishop she was “filled with peace and joy” at Lourdes. However she added: “I knew I would not be healed. But the Lord granted me a peace that only he could give.”
“It is absolutely essential that we must have faith and confidence in the Lord,” said the archbishop.
“Then there are those who are healed, who are restored to full health, and live their lives,” he continued. “The most important thing is their faith in Jesus Christ and their confidence in the Cross.”
“Does that mean that those who are not healed lack in faith? No,” Archbishop Aquila said. “They just surrendered more to the Lord. We saw that example in Jesus himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, in which he accepts the father’s plan rather than his own. ‘Not my will be done, father, but yours. If you wish, take this cup away from me’.”
“The greatest act of love is accomplished on the cross. Sin, death and the devil are overcome,” said Archbishop Aquila. He encouraged the congregation to surrender themselves to Jesus, like the leper did, kneeling and entrusting themselves to him.
After Mass, members of the Order of Malta gave out small bottles of holy water from Lourdes. The lay religious order, which sponsored the healing Mass, has been in the Denver area for about ten years, according to Marice Erickson, a Dame of Malta and location leader for the Knights of Malta in Colorado.
